3 Tips to Raise Your Credit Score

To get a home, you don’t need a perfect credit score. But, it will help you get a lower interest rate. So, how do you get the high score?

Pay Your Bills on Time… All the Time – On time payments make up 35% of your FICO score. One single 30 day past due can bring down your score, quickly.

Some of us are perfect, but not many. Only about 1.4% of the population has a perfect score of 850. It can take years to build up a perfect credit score and you may not have that amount of time.

Keep a low balance on your credit cards – Experian says to keep your average credit utilization not just 5.8%. You may want to pay your balance more than once a month so that the credit bureaus see a lower balance on your card when the billing cycle ends.

Don’t Inquire too Much – You can ask for a free credit report every now and then but be careful about hard inquires to a lender in checking your credit for a loan or credit card. Experts say these queries can appear on a credit report and affect a credit score. Hard inquiries from applying for a new loan or credit account can stay on your credit report for up to two years. Experts also say consumers will likely end up with a higher credit score when they haven’t applied for new credit within the past year.

 

Source:

“5 Easy Ways Anyone Can Get Closer to a Perfect Credit Score,” Apartment Therapy (September 2019)